Artisans blend traditional techniques with modern designs to engage foreign guests

Guests visit the Shanxi exhibition zone during the Mid-Autumn Festival reception in Geneva on Sept 25. [Photo by Liu Jie/For China Daily]

On Sept 25, when Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated, the Chinese permanent mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland, held a reception for foreign diplomats from 120-plus countries and officials from more than 20 international organizations.

The event, which was meant to celebrate the traditional Chinese festival and the 77th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, also featured an exhibition to showcase China's development, science and technology, as well as intangible cultural heritage.

As an important part of the event, the ICH exhibition zone was sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Shanxi Province and Shanxi Daily, and organized by the Shanxi International Communication Center.

As the only host province of this ICH exhibition, Shanxi attracted attention from guests with its rich portfolio of cultural heritage exhibits.

As one of the cradles of ancient Chinese civilization, Shanxi has been an active player in international exchanges throughout its long history, including economic and cultural exchanges via the ancient Silk Road since the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) and the booming international trade pioneered by the renowned Shanxi merchants – or Jinshang – during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

In recent years, Shanxi province has again demonstrated an increasingly important role in the Belt and Road Initiative by establishing itself as one of the hubs for the international freight train services that connect to dozens of Belt and Road countries and regions.

Datong knotting master Yang Xuefei (right) introduces her creations to visitors. [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

Echoing this theme, Yang Xuefei, a knotting artist from the northern Shanxi city of Datong, displayed 48 brooches featuring the national flowers of Belt and Road countries.

"The brooches were made using 'Datong knotting', a recognized ICH craft," said Yang, noting that this centuries-old technique is a combination of fabric knitting and rope work.

"Old as it is, the technique now develops with innovative adaptations to modernity," said the artist, who was making brooches for Swiss guests on-site.

While featuring the edelweiss, a national symbol of Switzerland, the pieces also contained elements of Datong's local culture – the ornamental flying ribbons inspired by the Yungang Grottoes statues, especially the ones called feitian, or apsaras in the Sanskrit language.

"The edelweiss conveys our best wishes to our Swiss friends," Yang said. "The feitian ribbons are reminders of the craft's birthplace – a city famous for one of the finest Buddhist cave arts in China."

She added that Yungang Grottoes were also a witness to flourishing international cultural exchanges in history.

Creative cultural products from Datong on display. [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

More than 1,500 years ago, Datong was a hub for the spread of the Buddhist religion and art in China.

Artists and craftsmen building the grottoes absorbed the essence of sculptural arts from South Asia, the origin of the Buddhist religion, and adapted these influences to local aesthetics, making the site a representative example of early Chinese Buddhist art.

"Even more than 1,500 years ago, craftsmen in Datong adhered to the principle of innovative inheritance when creating the grottoes," Yang said. "This has been an inspirational asset for many generations of local artists in the following periods."

Bearing this spirit in mind, Yang and her colleagues have created more than 500 creative cultural products based on the Datong knotting technique and local culture.

Shanxi's creative cultural products attract the attention of visitors from various countries. [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

In recent years, Yang has brought the products to the world, displaying them in countries such as Brazil, India, France and Switzerland, making these small articles a vehicle to promote Chinese culture globally.

Bai Huaibing, a master inheritor of the ancient colored glaze production technique in Jiexiu, displayed more than 20 exhibits at the event in Geneva.

The Shanxi city of Jiexiu boasts a millennium-long history of colored glaze craftsmanship, hosting numerous buildings and ornaments adorned with this well-preserved art form.

The colored glaze pieces include ceramics, building ornaments and sculptures. Renowned for their vibrant hues and distinctive designs, these pieces have found frequent application in the decoration of ancient Chinese palaces, temples, pagodas and residences.

Since the Ming Dynasty, Jiexiu had been a major colored glaze ornaments supplier to the Forbidden City and other royal properties in the country.

Hailing from a family with many generations dedicated to colored glaze production, Bai has developed a great number of glazed items that appeal to modern aesthetics and are suitable for home decoration.

At the exhibition, the artist taught visitors how to apply glaze to the pottery bodies, giving them a better understanding of the traditional Chinese art.

"To make colored glaze items, you must have clean raw materials and clean ingredients, just like you must have a pure heart to make fine products," said Bai. "I have been treating this art as the heritage of my ancestors. I'm obliged to pass it on to future generations and promote it to the world."

Nan Yujie from Datong treats guests to snacks that carry flavors from the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534). [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

Wearing Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) clothing, Nan Yujie, a female artist from Datong, made yanggeng, as well as other snacks, and served them to guests on-site.

Judging from its Chinese characters, yanggeng often reminds people of the Japanese snack of yokan. "However, this was a popular snack some 1,600 years ago in Datong, when it served as the capital city of the Northern Wei Dynasty," Nan said. "It later spread to Japan and remains popular there."

According to Nan, in China, the yanggeng-making technique was lost several hundred years ago.

"Fortunately, the technique was recorded in such ancient books as Qi Min Yao Shu, a Northern Wei Dynasty book also known as Important Arts for the People's Welfare," Nan said. "I tried to recover this technique by referring to the books and succeeded."

Made from red bean flour, chestnut flour, sugar and other ingredients, the snack Nan made retains a distinctive Shanxi flavor, compared with the Japanese yokan.

After tasting some of the snacks, many visitors said they were happy to have a bite of the Shanxi food with a history of more than 1,600 years.

Shangdang brocade products from Changzhi are exhibited. [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

Also on display at the event were Shangdang brocade from the city of Changzhi, hand-polished lacquerware from the county of Pingyao and chengni ink slabs from the city of Yuncheng, as well as many others.

The exhibition's organizing officials said that Shanxi is renowned for its rich intangible cultural heritage resources. It now boasts 182 representative ICH items on the national list and 198 nationally recognized ICH inheritors. In addition, it hosts more than 1,000 provincial-level ICH items.

"Over the decades, we have adhered to the principle of dynamic inheritance, making the rich ICH assets an important part of people's lives," said an organizing official. "We are proud that many people are engaged in protecting and inheriting the assets, and promoting them to the world."

He added that promoting the ICH assets via marketing is crucial for dynamic inheritance. "We genuinely hope people can bring home these ICH-themed items."

This was also the case in the Geneva exhibition.

Shanxi's creative cultural products attract the attention of visitors from various countries. [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

Shanxi Daily, one of the event's sponsors, for instance, was showing its efforts to integrate cultural assets with daily life.

Among its exhibits were the sauce dishes, which were decorated with patterns featuring Shanxi's landmark cultural attractions, including Pingyao Ancient City and the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda.

The exhibits drew the attention of Jia Guide, China's permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland.

"Embedding ancient Chinese cultural elements into ordinary tableware is an innovative idea," Jia said. "It can arouse interest in China and Shanxi among overseas users."

The exhibition had indeed attracted visitors' attention to Shanxi. After immersing themselves in Shanxi's ICH assets, many visitors, who were not so familiar with the province, began to browse maps of Shanxi on their smartphones and even talked about plans to visit.

During his visit, Matthew Wilson, ambassador of Barbados to the United Nations Office at Geneva, praised the exhibition as a showcase of exquisite Oriental craftsmanship, demonstrating the cultural charm of China in a vivid manner.

A foreign guest learns to apply glaze to pottery at the Jiexiu colored glaze exhibition area. [Photo by Long Rui/For China Daily]

Shanxi International Communication Center, the organizer of the exhibition, used the event as an opportunity to promote Shanxi's cultural exchanges with Europe and the rest of the world.

During the event, the center showed a number of its documentaries to visitors. The documentaries included World Youth Meet Ancient Chinese Architecture, which covered an international volunteers' workshop for repairing cultural relics in Pingyao, and Spokesperson for Ancient Buildings, which featured young foreigners visiting lesser-known ancient buildings scattered in Shanxi's rural areas.

Meanwhile, the Shanxi Radio and Television Administration brought a series of short dramas to the event, introducing Shanxi's cultural heritage sites and intangible cultural heritage, narrated from local and international perspectives.

Liu Jie, Hao Hong and Zhang Xing contributed to this story.